Saturday, March 2, 2013

Pink Shirt Day

This week in Canada (February 27th) was Pink Shirt Day. Pink Shirt Day is used to promote awareness of those that bully and the effects of bullying. The anti-bullying day is "celebrated" by everyone wearing a pink shirt to work or school. There are parades (demonstrations?) and speeches.

I don't really understand all of it. What is actually accomplished by all this? Has one bully stopped?I understand the cancer awareness days: money is raised. There is no money raised to prevent bullying.

I talked to a pastor friend of mine that evening. He and I both had experienced bullying growing up. He was a preacher's kid and wore glasses, which made him the brunt of jokes and target of the bullies. I was was the new kid (since we moved several times) and I was a bit book smart. Both us expressed that we experienced a bit of fear at the hand of bullies.

Solutions? It seemed to us that society (Canadian and American), is trying to emasculate little boys. Sometime boys need to fight. The guy that is being bullied needs learn to stand up, while the bully needs to learn a lesson. A lot of times, after a good fight, the boys end up being the best of friends.

I am not saying that this is the solution in every case. With our societies, the fathers have bowed out of their relationships with their kids. Mothers ofter work outside of the house (necessarily) and are not seeing what their kids are going through. As a result, there is no parental guidance, or at least as much as is needed. In the perfect world, things would be different.